Faults
by R. Slashinger
Summary: Remus attempts to contemplate his friendship with the marauders.


Disclaimer: My surname isn't Rowling or Warner.

A/N: MY FIRST PUBLISHED FIC. WHAT IN THE WORLD. Freaking out with happiness. I started this a day ago and just got it finished it today. Hah! Take that old me! Also, I don't know why this is from first perspective. It just happened. I think it worked out alright. *shrug * Also-also, if you'd like to take this and bika-bika-beta it, I would NOT be hatin'! Also-also-aslo, I've dun goofd and swooped a line from one of my favorite wizard rock songs.

ALSOALSOALSOalso - Enjoy!

* * *

After a rather extraordinary day, one marked with the very eccentricities of my dearest mates, the marauders, I set to make a list. I suppose it was two lists, really, but that doesn't matter. What does matter however, is that 15 minutes after we arrived in the Gryffindor common room, and three minutes and a yawn more, when the rest of the marauders retreated back to the our rooms, I sat up from the uncomfortable of the smallest common room sofa and I noticed something off. The lists had turned from the good and bad of being a marauder - being considered the epitome of a miscreant, of mischief - to the good and bad of being the best mate of Sirius Black, also known as: the epitome of a miscreant, of mischief.

Little was on this list, but suffice to say the figurative magnitude – if my underlining and boxing and bolding were of any evidence – of each item were larger than that of list of good. I was glad that my companions went to sleep when they did, specifically Sirius, as my stomach was lurching with guilt and my face was more than likely doing an incredibly obvious 'I'm-guilty-I'm-unworthy-please-don't-hate-me" expression.

It was really great - bloody wonderful Sirius wasn't here, leaning over me as he tends to do (with moans and complaints of how boring the subject which I am reading or writing is); upon the bad was his untamed-fire-like temper, wild and infectious, leaving anything in its path to temporary ruins; taking the taunting of Severus Snape to psychologically damaging levels, just 'cause I believe no one, regardless of how greasy and unpleasant, deserves some of the things Sirius says to him.

His reckless, "do now, think later" made that list as well, and combining the two, the worst of it all, starred and underlined and everything alike, was "The Prank" that shouldn't actually be considered a prank. "The Prank" that was so much the opposite of a prank. I was so much the opposite of the putting dungbombs in the girl 's lavatories and having them detonate in Filch's snaggle-toothed face; so much opposite of killing Snape and company's hair bright yellow.

These pranks were pranks and they were a right laugh. "The Prank" was ranking evil, scoring high on the Black-Slytherin legacy Sirius so desperately tried to deny. I was angry. I was hurt. We didn't speak for months. Three to be exact, save for "are you finish with the loo?" or when he attempted to apologize. It was the same thing on repeat, with tears and screaming that hurt my heart just enough to will me to pay attention: "I'm sorry Remus! Remus I'm sorry, so sorry Remus! Remus, moony, you've have to believe me! I'm an idiot, a bloody sod that shouldn't be allowed a brain if I am not going to use it, a bloody idiot…" I cried every other day or so and I tried to ignore the few times he cried himself to sleep.

As I mentioned, I forgave him. 3 months and 4 days later, two days after a full moon, I was cold and naked, scared and hurting everywhere. I wanted to hate Sirius so much, that I had shunned him from coming on our monthly outings. He ignored the rule, though, and he made his way to the shack that morning after. He wrapped his self around my limp form, and being as tired as I was – tired of the lycanthropic boundaries and being sad over a spoiled friendship – I let him.

He cried into my back with the same apologies, kissing my scars, cradling and shooshing me when my breathing became irregular and my eyes watered, his symptoms never stopping themselves. We sat entangled in dried tears and silence until I sat up and told him to go back to the dorm. He looked hurt, so I kissed him. That was different, but I know it was right. He gave me a small smile and I sent one back. As he left the shabby room I realized couldn't hate him. Not even a little. It took time to get back to our regular banter and flirt, but it happened and just like I knew it would. Just like it always does.

That's one of things I missed, his ability to make me happier on those darkest of nights and foggiest of mornings. He suggested to the marauders and became an animagus for exactly that, he told me once. He promised to always be there, and was. Admittedly, we had never been as intimate as the way we were after "the prank", but he was unquestionably there after my transformations, laying in the corner in his padfoot form only to wake up and do some sort of odd trick or transform back to himself and crack some incredibly awful joke. He seemed expert in assembling my smile and in knowing that bad jokes made me laugh the most.

He knows my weaknesses and was always the first to appease them.

Or refute them. That was on the list, too; he hated when I called my self a monster, belittled myself, or deemed myself a freak and he did everything next to offering to bring down the moon, as to convince me to "stop talking like that."

He is everything I'm not, but everything I need. I've always been the quietest, while he the most outspoken. Over time, his extroversion kicked me out of my introversion, 'cause he knows, just knows, that although I loved things like reading in leisure, I need to step out of my head sometimes. He knows when I have the time to allow myself a break from studying or being a mother figure to everyone (a character he calls "Remusella"), and accordingly knows when and what to do to get me from retreating back to those things.

He told me I'd drive myself mental one day, talking to those books (he meant my journal) and offered me himself. I had taken the offer and it was the easiest thing. It was the most liberating thing. He lets me talk for hours, about anything, when we're alone. It's great because my thoughts don't have to be rehearsed for him, giving worth to my words by never loosing attention and replying to any inquires I make with matched enthusiasm.

Quiet for him is weird, considering his normal broomstick-speed chatter, but when I ask him what he has on his mind, it's usually one sentence answers like "you and me plus the qudditch pitch stands" or "locking evans in an empty classroom with prongs until she can't stand but stand him," and eventually, "What about you, moony?" It may have brought the conceit to an uninviting level, but I appreciate it so much, I wrote it on the list.

And as much as I sympathize for Severus, I dislike him, his friends, and their full-blown, potentially evil selves. Sirius is always there to shut Snape up when he comes close to telling my secret, using words instead of his wand more lately, and it means the world to me. When it does get to him, I only have but to give a casual stare and we're both walking away ignoring the "I see who wears the pants in the relationship" or "sodding queers." That's definitely why the really funny pranks have never ceased, my help included.

Many of the little things made the list, too. His great grin, for example, each morning at 7a.m. before breakfast and classes, held with one limp eye, and only to match mine. Hogsmeade weekends were just as astounding, if astounding it can be called because he'd sneak off to get me what he deemed "surprises" only for me to later see that surprises meant chocolate. Again. But I was always one for tradition, and this custom I could get accustom to for the rest of my life. It was the little things, and if you don't enjoy and appreciate those, all you have is the great, big annoying things – as living can be vile - that will weigh you down and keep you there. Or so Sirius says, again.

As I tear the list and chuck its pieces into the fading fire to my left, I start to think about those little thing and those big things, of those bad things and good. My lip hurts as I bite it and the smile that is emerging, so I give into the curl. When the list is ash, I make my way up to the boy dormitory, change into my night clothes and opt to crawl into Sirius' bed. He's only wearing his bottoms, but that is not a surprise and definitely NOT unwelcomed.

Did I mention that was on the list? Sirius Black is the most sexiest blokes I know. Most sexiest blokes I want to know. He makes me hate that I ever wanked alone.

"Moony?" he yawns, as I snake an arm around him, bending my body to his, his back to my chest. I kiss the left of his neck.

"Expecting another bloke, then?" I whisper into his ear. I'm not hurt at all but I feel him stiffen in my hold. I lift my body a little more and kiss the cornier of his lips to emphasize that it was only a joke. He doesn't get to say whatever was coming after "No! What. Moony…"

"Way to get my heart going." I don't respond just yet, but take my hand across the low of his stomach.

"Oh, you mean to get my heart going, don't you?" He turns around in my arms with half-lidded eyes and a sizable smirk.

"I love it when you start! Go on, then, my moony! I'll play along! Shall I get my spiked collar?"

I only roll my eyes and kiss him full, like the professional-padfoot snogger he calls me, and say "Too tired."

He gapes and grunts and says something to the effect of "stupid teasing poof" and puts his head on my shoulder. I don't say anything this time, we readjust and he drapes himself over me. When I close my eyes I feel a warm hand curl around my neck and a heart beat next to mine.

He falls asleep like that, but I stay awaking thinking of the list, or more like how I should never doubt my closest mates, because they have nothing but made me feel loved and accepted and happy since we've first met. Naturally, I shouldn't of doubted my best mates because that meant doubting my best of best mates, my new confidant and lover and that is plainly unacceptable. Padfoot may have his faults, but he has quite the quirks in recompense.


End file.
